Wednesday, February 3, 2016

City studying how to improve travel between Columbia Heights and Brookland, NoMa: buses, bikes, new Circulator, more

If you've ever tried to get from Columbia Heights to the newly happening areas of Brookland or NoMa you may have found it's a pain -- aside from a cab or Bikeshare, there's no great direct route -- the H buses mostly run for commuting hours.

The city is working to fix that, undertaking a study on transportation between Wards 1 and 5.

Calling it the DC Crosstown study, they had their first public meeting yesterday, and Park View DC has the rundown: a lot of people asked for dedicated bus lanes, enhanced pedestrian crossings, and protected bike lanes, for example.

There's also an interactive map where you can give your comments about things you'd like to see changed or added. It's pretty neat -- I added that I'd like more buses to Brookland, for example. Others talked about dangerous intersections, bad traffic, and a lack of public space. (It doesn't seem to work on Safari, though.)

The city is also looking to create a new Circulator route that goes to NoMa, and last year asked for help on which route: two of them include Columbia Heights as the destination -- one route runs from NoMa up to the Washington Hospital Center then over to Columbia Heights, while another ran from NoMa up Florida, 9th and 11th to Monroe Street. That comment period is over, so we'll see if Columbia Heights is the winner.

Nice to see the city focusing on this. Now if only we could get some way to get to H Street easily.